Super-Mom

-by Carlan

My superhuman wife & our baby.

My wife has super powers. She wasn’t always this way. A year ago she was your typical drop-dead gorgeous, incredibly-talented, multi-lingual, polymath concert pianist and composer. It was somewhere mid-Spring 2019 that something activated in her psyche, like a dormant gene waiting for the right circumstances to express itself. I think it had something to do with motherhood.

“There’s a loose bolt on the road ahead, don’t hit it!” “That ladder doesn’t look like it’s tied down well enough on that truck to the left!” Michelle’s threat-radar had quadrupled in sensitivity overnight, especially while driving.

“Did you hear that? Either a moth had a hiccup in the attic or something’s wrong with Gabrielle!” [Nothing was wrong with our daughter, so I hope that moth had a glass of water or something.] Super-hearing: activated.

Carrying a baby while performing such tasks as making oatmeal, pouring a cup of tea, brushing teeth, and having a phone call requires upgraded cerebellar function (balance, coordination). [Though I’m not saying that we haven’t broken a glass or a plate while trying to do too much at once since our little bundle of joy entered the world.]

But most impressively, Michelle has developed some kind of invulnerability to sleep deprivation. I went through med school and residency. I have had to stay up for 30 hrs straight every fourth day for weeks on end. However, I can count on one hand the number of times my wife has gotten more than a 4 hr block of sleep over the past six months. Yet every morning she smiles and coos and makes friendly faces to the source of her insomnia. Incredible!

Catching a quick nap together while reading Babywise.

Becoming a parent changes things...maybe everything. Caring so much about the welfare of another (helpless) human being provides fertile ground for worry and fear. Expectations for what you are going to get done in a day now that you are looking after another (helpless) human being must be adjusted. And yes, fatigue is a real threat to joy and contentment. Yet I hope that by stopping to look back over the past several months, God’s great grace can be made evident and obvious.

Paul, no underachiever himself, wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” He was struggling with a trial that wouldn’t go away and prayed for deliverance. The way of Christ was not a way out but a way through the pain. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” is what Jesus told Paul. It turns out that the best thing for us helpless human beings is to regularly face challenges beyond our natural abilities so that God’s superhuman power can work in us.